The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) is hosting the Michigan Latinx Arts Summit on October 7, 2016, to provide a space for artists, educators, activists, and youth to strengthen professional networks and share best practices. "Attendees will want to arrive early to the Summit because a dynamic performance is being planned that morning which will mix musical styles and aesthetics, putting forms like contemporary street dance in conversation with traditional Puerto Rican bomba music," noted Gabriel Magraner, NALAC Director of Programs. DJ Martha, Lisa Brunk, America del Real of Joyas de America, Motor City Street Dance Academy, poets LadyFireTide and Sam A. Publes of Grand Rapids will participate.

There's still time to register for the free one-day event which will take place at the Ford Resource and Engagement Center. Register online at www.nalac.org/misummit.

The City of San Antonio will celebrate achievements made in arts and culture by San Antonians at the second annual Distinction in the Arts (DIA) awards reception on October 11. District 1 Councilman Roberto C. Treviño will host the Distinction in the Arts reception where Jim Cullum, Maria de Leon, Aaronetta Hamilton-Pierce, Jesse Treviño and Dr. Tomás Ybarra-Frausto will be recognized for their contributions and achievements in arts and culture.

Welcome Angela! NALAC Grants Administrator

We are pleased to announce that Angela Martinez joins the NALAC team to manage the Grants program and offer insight and expertise during the application process. She is available to address questions at amartinez@nalac.org or via the direct grants line at (210) 951.0296.

Learn more about the grants, review guidelines, access the application portal, and visit work samples by other NALAC Grantees by following the links below!

The NALAC Fund for the Arts supports US-based Latino artists and arts organizations in the development, creation, presentation and sustainability of artistic excellence, as well as the opportunity to participate in activities that contribute to professional and organizational growth.

Diverse Arts Spaces is a funding initiative open to Ford Foundation Diverse Arts Spaces organizations for the presentation or commissioning of work by Latino artists and ensembles.

CONGRATULATIONS

We are proud to recognize two leaders who have been nominated by President Obama to the National Council of the Arts: Sylvia Orozco (NFA '05), the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, and Pepón Osorio, the Laura Carnell Professor of Community Art at Temple University's Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.

Grantee Spotlights

There is great work by NALAC grantees happening across the country. Below, we highlight a few of our 2015 Grantees and the impact of their work on the community and the arts.

NALAC Fund for the Arts Grantee: Jenelle Esparza

Color de la Obra

To support sociological research of Latino communities along the US/Mexico borderlands and create and exhibit artwork that provides historical insight into the production of cotton as it relates to the lives and lineage of Latino/as in the Southern United States. Color de la Obra examines and artistically documents the production of cotton as it relates to migration of agricultural workers from Mexico to the US.

Jenelle's exhibition was recently reviewed by The Rivard Report, "The most intriguing part of the installation, again, is the grouping of mysterious boxes. Look into them directly and you will find bronze cast cotton balls that resemble jewelry and, through the magic of reflective mirrors, a beautiful tunnel effect that merges the bronze cotton balls, your own image, and the cotton fields from the mural to form a strange visual mash-up."

Transnational Cultural Remittances Grantee: Latino Theater Company

"A Mexican Trilogy" Development Project

To support a two-week development session for the Latino Theater Company's resident playwright Evelina Fernández to continue her collaboration with Mexican composer Rosino Serrano to adapt the three plays that make up "A Mexican Trilogy" into a one-day five-hour theatrical experience. "A Mexican Trilogy" follows the diaspora of Mexicans in the U.S., telling the story of a family spanning 3 generations of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the U.S. The plays were written in response to the recent resurgence of anti-immigrant sentiment.

Broadway World recently reviewed the production, "There is a fluidity to director Jose Luis Valenzuela's approach to the story that is almost poetic in the way it fuses its keen visual and storytelling elements. Memory creates powerful images and Valenzuela honors that union with reverence and healthy doses of humor enhanced as much by what we see and hear as what we don't."

Diverse Arts Spaces Grantee: The Nickelodeon

Indie Grits: Visiones

To support The Nickelodeon's Indie Grits Visiones, a three-day festival celebrating Latino arts and culture. The festival will include screenings of new films by Latino filmmakers, a visual arts exhibition of works by primary artistic partner, Favianna Rodriguez, and local Latino artists, as well as a workshop led by Ms. Rodriguez. Visiones will explore the Latino community's vision for the future and empower Latino artists to define their evolving identity through art.

The most recent Indie Grits theme was Waterlines and The Nickelodeon has released a new website that archives commissioned works. Over 20 different artists met over a 6-month period to discuss the flood that ravaged Columbia, SC, last October. These artists met with experts, flood victims, and then created new work. The result is a body of work that spans many different types of media including film, dance, photography, installations, video games, music and performance art.

ALUMNI NEWS

Cristina Balli (NLI '04) has been named Executive Director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, TX. Read about her appointment in the San Antonio Express News.

Maria De Leon with Joaquin Castro, Sandra Cisneros, Santiago Jimenez, Jr., Julian Castro, and her son Ernesto De Avila.

Latino Artists Honored with the National Medal of Arts & Humanities

María López de León joined Latino leaders in Washington, DC, to honor recipients of the National Medal of Arts for their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States.

Dance/USA recently launched Round Four of Engaging Dance Audiences (EDA), thanks to the support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. EDA will fund the refinement of successful engagement programs. Dance organizations can apply to meet one of two objectives: 1) They can refine an existing engagement program, focusing particularly on the quality of the experience for the participating audience or community, or 2) They can refine programs that have a track record of engaging ALAANA (African, Latino(a)(x), Asian, Arab and Native American) audiences, the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities, communities of faith, or incarcerated people and their families.Learn more here.

Have a job, call for entries or training that you'd like others to know about? Post it on our Opportunities section of the NALAC website. It's free!

GRANT REVIEW PANELIST NOMINATIONS

NALAC | To nominate someone (or yourself) to serve on a NALAC panel please fill out this form. Our panels represent a diversity of Latinidades, experiences, generations, and disciplines.

NEA | The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is always looking for individuals with experience and expertise in one or more of the arts to serve as grant review panelists. Please emailpanelistforms@arts.gov for additional information.

The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) is a legacy organization investing in the Latino heritage of this nation. For 27 years, NALAC has built a strong foundation for the promotion of Latino arts and culture and its advocacy efforts have advanced issues of cultural equity and raised the visibility and understanding of Latino artistic and cultural expression. The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) is the nation's leading nonprofit organization exclusively dedicated to the promotion, advancement, development, and cultivation of the Latino arts field. In this capacity, NALAC stimulates and facilitates intergenerational dialogues among disciplines, languages, and traditional and contemporary expressions. NALAC serves thousands of Latino artists and hundreds of organizations representing a national and international community of multiple Latinidades; a network that crosses many cultures across the Latino Diaspora. For more information visit our website at www.nalac.org or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Nalac.arts1.